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Exodus

Arif Hasan, in his paper, The Roots of Elite Alienation, gives a compelling account of the sequence of events that led to the disengagement of the elite of Pakistan with the progress of the country.  From 1972-1976, ZA Bhutto nationalised private educational institutions and industries and then, in 1977, banned  leisure and entertainment activities that were deemed to be un-Islamic.  This was followed by eleven lean years of General Zia ul Haq’s consolidation of his version of an Islamic State,  that filtered down to the street dictating suitable clothing, greetings, and punishment for transgressions. 

Arif Hasan examines the social and economic implications of these changes as factors for, what one can call, the Great Withdrawal of the elite. Young people were sent abroad for higher education rather than to State Universities, and many were encouraged to remain there. Educators left as classroom discussions became restricted and prescribed. Family vacations were no longer within Pakistan. The elite stopped using railways to travel, patronizing teashops or local cinemas. Entertainment became private instead of public and multiclass. Arif Hasan quotes a senior lawyer who said, with the closing of public gathering spaces “all discussions on politics, international affairs, culture and especially poetry, came to an end. We ceased to exchange views and in the process ceased to relate to the Pakistani society as a whole”. 

There was no longer any motivation to maintain standards of railways, museums and other public spaces. Add to this the exodus of high quality engineers, medical practitioners, town planners, economists, potential civil servants that has contributed to the deteriorating livability levels in Pakistan. With the diminishing numbers of the cultural and intellectual elite in Pakistan, accumulation of wealth has become the marker for climbing the social ladder. 

This loss of faith has infiltrated the psyche of subsequent generations, reinforced by accounts of transfer of wealth abroad by the country’s most privileged and powerful.

While Pakistani labour, and now blue collar workers, have been seeking better incomes outside Pakistan since the 50s, they do send back remittances amounting to 8035 million dollars in 2021, that benefits the country.

There is a counter development of social mobility in Pakistan, where the son of a mason becomes an architect, the son of a sweeper becomes a film maker, the daughter of a cook becomes a lawyer. However, growing up with the mantra of an unlivable Pakistan, drummed in by parents as well as the larger community, those that can, plan to emigrate.  Those who cannot, feel trapped and survive as best as they can. In the words of the song, mein doob raha hoon, abhi dooba tau nahin. I am drowning but I have not drowned yet.

Migration can be a mixed experience. While valuable personal freedoms are gained, there is a loss of mohalla dari or neighbourhood. Many head to the local masjid to find a sense of belonging, or watch Pakistani TV channels . There is anxiety and guilt about those left behind especially aging parents. There is concern that children should not get too assimilated into the host society. Within Pakistan, villages have children growing up without fathers, placing extraordinary burdens on the women.  Each visit to the home country, challenges idealized memories of home, that Malcolm Bradbury has called ‘ the problem of the lost centre’.

Artists and writers living in self-exile choose to express memories of their home country, some expatriates form Pakistani or South Asian societies, send funds for digging wells in Pakistani villages, and reassure themselves they made the right decision as they hear dismal news of Pakistan. Shakeel Badayuni wrote “It was my fate to go to a distant land, I leave, leaving behind my father's courtyard.” Have they in fact “left home”? or do they carry home with them like the Palestinian Poet Mahmoud Darwish or the Irish Americans, who, generations later, celebrate St Patrick’s Day with nostalgic songs of Ireland. 

It is tempting to speculate that if Pakistanis who panicked and left, would have stayed like Arif Hasan, to fight the good fight, they could have made it the country of their dreams. Some have returned to contribute the skills they have acquired. Some because they feel more at home, like a friend who said he felt like a mango tree trying to grow in a temperate forest.  

 

Durriya Kazi

Karachi

July 15, 2022

 durriyakazi1918@gmail.com

 

 

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