Questions of Identity

Recently, I’ve heard it said that the insurmountable problem with Pakistan is that we don’t have a national identity.

I think national identity is overrated.

I chose to move back to Pakistan after many years abroad.

I dislike the Indian government’s position on Kashmir. I deeply dislike India launching air strikes against Pakistan.

I am not fundamentally anti-Indian.

If it were up to me, I would have both countries compromise on our disputes, end our dangerous military standoff, and institute visa-free travel.

Similarly, if the test of being a Pakistani is that I would like our country to look more like what Zia-ul-Haq had in mind-in other words, a country where you could happily live your life according to any interpretation of Islam so long as it was his interpretation of Islam-then I fail again.

I don’t want my government imposing its view of religion on me.

There is a reason why differences between Sunnis and Shi’as exist, and why differences between Barelvis and Deobandis exist. The reason these differences exist is that Muslims disagree.

So I support the idea that Pakistan should be a place where Muslims are free to practise their religion according to their own conscience, and where religious minorities are free to do the same.

But let’s say I was different. Let’s say I hated India to the core. In Canada there are aging Sikh supporters of Khalistan who probably hate India to the core. Does hating India make me somehow Canadian? Or let’s say that I liked Zia’s particular vision of Islam. Maybe there are people in Saudi Arabia who like it too.

So am I really a Saudi? My point is that neither being virulently anti-Indian nor having a rigid, government-sponsored interpretation of religion necessarily makes someone Pakistani. What does make someone Pakistani then? In its simplest terms: being from here.

If you’re from Pakistan, then you’re a Pakistani. I recognise that this definition of national identity, which takes as its starting point people and geography rather than abstract ideology, may seem pretty useless. But I don’t think it is useless at all, for three reasons.

1. Being able to define Pakistanis simply as people from Pakistan should come as a relief.

Before 1947, there was no Pakistan. For some decades after, it looked like we might be overrun by a hostile India. Yet we’re still here.

We’re 63 years old.

2. If we think about our national identity in this way we can stop clinging to oppressive ideologies to hold our ethnically diverse country together.

We really should not be at much risk of splitting apart.

Take each of our provinces in turn. The Hazara minority issue aside, the Pathans of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa are unlikely to want to join up with their brethren in Afghanistan for the simple reason that life in Afghanistan is much worse than it is in Pakistan.

Sindh and Balochistan, their names notwithstanding, are multi-ethnic provinces that would themselves face ethnic divisions should they attempt to build independent states on the basis of ethnicity.

The same is true of Punjab, which is landlocked besides. Of course, oppressing ethnic groups could drive them out of our federation, but provided we treat each other fairly, our reasons to remain together are more powerful.

3. If we can accept that we’re real people in a real place (instead of an idea of an imagined utopia), and that we are one country because we actually choose to be (instead of a sand castle in desperate need of wave-resistant ideology), then we can focus on what really matters: understanding who our country is for.

In a democracy, our country is for us.

It exists to allow as many of us as possible to live better lives. At the moment, a few of us are living like kings. But most of us are living on weekly wages worth not much more than a kilo of pine nuts.

When you’re paid pine nuts, so to speak, you have every right to demand that things improve.

The stories countries tell themselves about their national identities are always partly fictional. Among millions of people, in any country, there will be differences. National identities are ways of denying those differences.

After its civil war between North and South, America reforged its national identity in conflicts against Native Americans, Germany, Japan, and the Soviet Union. Now its conflict is with a few thousand terrorists.

But the latter is hardly an adversary powerful enough to unite a nation of 300 million people. Cracks in America’s national identity are re-emerging, with more uncompromising partisanship and political groupings that appear in many ways to be descended from those of the old North and South of a century and a half ago, even if now the terms used are Red and Blue.

In India too, some sections of society seem determined to forge a national identity as an upcoming superpower.

It is perhaps no accident that this has been accompanied by the rise of anti-Muslim political parties and a backlash of Maoist tribal rebellions.

The official Indian national identity appears to be growing more distant from one that can encompass all of its people.

Pakistan has been making the same mistake, but we can stop. The problem with Pakistan is not our national identity. The problem is that we have allowed ourselves to be distracted and bogged down in the name of national identity for too long.

Pakistan’s Secret

Pakistan is not as poor as we like to think.

Over the years I’ve travelled a fair bit around our country. I’ve ridden on the back of a motorbike in Gwadar, walked down streets in Karachi, explored bazaars in Peshawar. I’ve hiked in Skardu, fished (unsuccessfully) in Naran, sat down to a meal in a village outside Multan. I’m no expert, but I believe what my eyes tell me and there’s no doubt about it: times are incredibly tough.

For most Pakistanis, meat is a luxury. Drinking water is contaminated with urine, faeces or industrial chemicals. School is a building that exists only on paper or otherwise employs a teacher who is barely literate. Electricity is so intermittent as to be almost a force of nature, like rain or a breeze.

The budget reveals that the Pakistani government plans to generate Rs. 1.5tr in taxes this year. With an estimated population of 170 million people, this equals approximately Rs. 9,000 each per year; a little over Rs. 700 per month per person.

That is not enough. Yes, we get money from other sources. We borrow, and sell off state assets, and ask for aid from anyone willing to give it to us. But still, what we can raise ourselves in taxes accounts for most of what our government can spend. And when your goal is enough power plants and teacher training and low-income support and (since we seem intent on buying them) F-16s for the world’s sixth most populous country, Rs. 700, the equivalent of a large Pizza Hut pizza in taxes for each of us every month doesn’t go very far.

Why is Pakistan not delivering what we hope for? Because of dictatorships, or India, or the Americans? Perhaps, but these days a large part of the reason is this: we citizens aren’t paying enough for Pakistan to flourish.

On my travels around our country I haven’t just seen malnourished children and exhausted farmers and hardworking forty-year-old women who look like they’re eighty. I’ve also seen huge ancestral land holdings and giant textile factories and Mobilink offices with lines of customers stretching out the door. I’ve seen shopkeepers turn up to buy Honda Civics with cash. 51I’ve seen armies of private security guards, fleets of private electricity generators. I’ve seen more handwritten non­official receipts than I can possibly count.

Many of our rich have tens of millions of dollars in assets. And our middle class numbers tens of millions of people. The resources of our country are enormous. We’ve just made a collective decision not to use them. We pay only about 10 per cent of our GDP in taxes. (Our GDP is our total economy, what all of us together earn in a year.) Meanwhile, Sri Lankans pay 15 per cent of their GDP in taxes, Indians pay 17 per cent, Turks pay 24 per cent, Americans pay 28 per cent and Swedes pay a fat 50 per cent. We Pakistanis pay a pittance in comparison.

That is fabulous news, because it can change. Raising taxes doesn’t depend on foreign policy, getting a wink from Uncle Sam or a nod from King so-and-so. It doesn’t require a breakthrough in technology or a year of good rain. It’s under our control.

What would happen, for example, if we raised tax revenues by a fifth: from 10 per cent of GDP to 12 per cent? Well, that would give us Rs. 300 billion a year. We could use that to rent a million classrooms for Rs. 10,000 per month, give jobs as teachers to a million graduates for Rs. 15,000 per month, and ensure that every single child in our country received a decent education. By raising taxes to the level of Sri Lanka, 15 per cent of GDP, we would generate additional revenue equal to twice our official defence budget. Match India at 17 per cent of GDP and the additional money would equal a staggering 25

So if you are a progressive who wants the state to do more to help the poor, you should support more taxes. If you are an industrialist who wants to see that Taliban recruits are rehabilitated and retrained, you should support more taxes. If you are a professional who wants electricity and better police, you should support more taxes. If you are an anti- American who wants us to stop taking US aid, you should support more taxes. If you are a diehard militarist who wants us to buy lots of F-16s, you should support more taxes.

The only people who shouldn’t support more taxes are those who think that the situation in Pakistan right now is already too good. 52Taxes are the big hope for Pakistan. It isn’t complicated. Anyone who says we can’t solve our problems or afford to give our people a decent standard of living isn’t telling the truth. We can afford it. We’ve just chosen not to.

This is where our democracy can make a difference. We have elected our representatives. Horribly imperfect as they are, they represent us. And because they represent us, they have the right to ask us to act in our shared self-interest, to contribute more to the collective pot that is Pakistan. It seems they are starting to do so. And perhaps rampant inflation and a dozen hours of load-shedding a day are making even many formerly comfortable and tax-averse citizens more amenable to change. But what about corruption? Yes, there’s no doubt that much of officialdom is corrupt. But so are we, the citizens. Every time we accept a fake receipt, or fail to declare any income, we are stealing from our country in precisely the same way our politicians and bureaucrats are. Our thefts as taxpayers might be comparatively small, but that is because taxes are so low in our country to begin with. At the moment, we feed off each other.

As we citizens start to display more probity in tax, we’re likely to demand more probity in how our money is spent, and our strengthening courts and media are likely to help us get it.

The tax revolution is not going to happen overnight. It will take time.

But there is good reason to hope it is coming, and to slowly shift the weight of our votes, our accounts and our attitudes to support the right side.

A brighter future awaits us if we, as Pakistani citizens, are willing to pay for it.