Towards the end of this book, Talbot talks about the disengagement of the Pakistani youth from their country; that is, from her past, present, issues, prosperity, or their active role towards Pakistan. I, for the most part, have been one of those young Pakistanis. My circumstances might differ from the majority of young Pakistanis since I belong to a small ethnic group The Hazaras and come from the city Quetta, situated in Baluchistan.
And in my background lies my early disengagement from Pakistan: while Baluchistan is the most backward, least populated, and often ignored by the federal government, which can be cause enough for the lack of patriotism among the residents of Baluchistan, the Hazaras are alienated even further for being a distinct ethnicity, a refugee community, and Shia minority. Therefore, my childhood years weren’t spent in the joys of patriotism, singing the national songs or waving of the Pakistan’s beautiful flag; it was rather unfortunately spent in the continuous survival from the targeted attacks on our community and the continuous mourning for the many that got martyred.
Many years later, now that I am a graduate and have begun the conscious act of observing, evaluating, and comprehending the contents of my life, my relationship with my country and her people seems to be equally as disengaged but in reverse; now I feel mostly abandoned and estranged towards Pakistan and the Pakistani. Despite my outgrowing of my nest and my travels to the urban cities of Pakistan for my education during which I not only met knew people and also learned about the country’s present and past, that disengaging and distancing feeling is still remains. Perhaps I shall never outgrow the tragic past which I lived along my aggrieved people, but there still remains the hope of closing this psychological gap between me and my country through the ever-uniting medium of education and understanding.
Talbot’s ‘Pakistan: A new History’, which consists of only 281 pages, successfully summarizes Pakistan’s six tumultuous decades, from its independence in 1947 to 2010 of Zardari’s government. Starting with an introduction to Pakistan’s transition into a separate country, her demo and geography, and her initial failure at constitution making, this book then follows the successive governments of civil and military rulers over the six decades (Ayub ’58-69; Bhutto ’71-73; Zia ’78-88; Benazir and Nawaz ’88-99; Musharraf ’99-2007; Zardari 2008 onwards) while critically analyzing the failures of each period and its accumulative effect on Pakistan’s complex, crippling, and unstable present-day state. Reading this book is an important, albeit disheartening, education regarding the chaotic, unstable, and tragic history of Pakistan.
Talbot pitches the start of each new era with the pregnant hope of corrective
measure against past’s mistakes and progressive governance of future; yet the facts
of history ruthlessly destroy all those hopes and instead creates further, more
deepening issues for Pakistan – eventually making it almost impossible for
Pakistan to hope for a way out of the accumulated burden of the history. While
the military capitalized on the lack of strong governance, the civil government
were too competitive, narrow-sighted, and unconfident to turn the dream of a
true, ‘behavioral’ democracy into a reality. Add to these the external
influences and the religious extremism and militia groups, and you’ve a recipe
for a series disappointing political setbacks. By the end of the book, my moral
was crushed and outview bleak; the only bit of solace I gathered was from
Talbot’s conditional yet grounded hopes for Pakistan eventual breakthrough.
Ratings: 4/5 **** November 4, 2021_