Under One Flag, But Not One Fate

Express Tribune

17-07-2025

The writer is a Dean's honour list student at the Beaconhouse National Univesity in Lahore, pursuing Media Studies
'Pakistan not only means freedom and independence but the Muslim ideology which has to be preserved, which has come to us as a precious gift and treasure…'
— Muhammad Ali Jinnah
Every August, we rise to recite the anthem: 'Iss parcham ke saaye talay hum aik hain.' It is not a fact — it is an aspiration. And like most aspirations in Pakistan, it is repeated more often than it is realised.
We assume the flag unites us. But symbols don't create solidarity. Systems do. Justice does. Shared fate does. And in today's Pakistan, fate is the most unequally distributed commodity of all.
Pakistan was not created as a nation-state in the traditional sense. It was born as a state first, with the hope that the nation would follow. The assumption was that a shared religion could unify diverse ethnic, linguistic, and socio-economic identities under one ideological roof. But religion, while essential to Pakistan's formation, proved insufficient to bind a country made up of distinct historical trajectories — Baloch, Pashtun, Punjabi, Sindhi, Saraiki, Hazara, and more — into a cohesive national identity.
In theory, we are one. In practice, we are a federation of alienations.
Jinnah's early speeches emphasise a secular civil order, not a theocratic state — where citizenship, not faith or ethnicity, determined one's rights. But what replaced his vision was a hybrid elite bargain — a ruling clique of feudal landlords, politicians, and bureaucrats that used the idea of Pakistan but never built the reality of it.
They didn't dismantle colonial hierarchies; they inherited and repurposed them. In Punjab, the feudal nexus consolidated land and loyalty. In Sindh, political dynasties and rural clientelism replaced participatory democracy. Balochistan was treated as a resource reservoir, not a province of people. And in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, the state bartered long-term development for short-term strategic depth.
The result is a unitary national narrative sitting atop a deeply plural society, with no mechanisms for meaningful inclusion.
Yes, Pakistan rallies during crises. War, earthquakes, floods — they trigger a performative solidarity. But this kind of unity is emotional. It does not build institutions. It fades with the news cycle. True unity is constitutional. It is forged through fair representation, justice delivery, decentralisation, and economic equity.
Is a Hazara from Quetta protected like a businessman in Gulberg? Does a Hindu sanitary worker in Umerkot feel as safe as a banker in Islamabad? Does a student in Kech have the same educational rights as one in DHA Karachi?
We wave the flag over them all — but it shelters them differently.
Pakistan's obsession with symbolism masks its failures in substance. We perform anthem-singing assemblies in schools that have no functional toilets. We celebrate minority heroes while silencing the cries of their communities. We invoke Iqbal's shaheen but reduce our youth to jobless, voiceless observers. We defend Islam vocally but abandon its ethics when it comes to justice, compassion, or economic morality.
This is not hypocrisy. This is the result of a society that has learned to perform identity, not build it.
It is easy to blame the state. But the deeper crisis is societal. We lack not just governance; we lack a moral architecture. Corruption is a service, not a crime. Bigotry is dinner-table humour. Merit is mocked. Silence is rewarded. Nationalism is now theatre, not sacrifice.
Unity cannot grow where collective memory is shallow and collective responsibility is absent.
If unity is to move beyond slogans, we must first redefine it beyond religion. Pakistan must embrace its ethnic and cultural pluralism not as a threat but as the very fabric of its identity. The flag should not homogenise — it must harmonise.
Second, constitutional federalism must be restored. Article 140A guarantees local governments, yet most provinces function without them. Without genuine devolution and local representation, the elite-commoner divide will continue to widen.
Third, we must move from charity to equity. Zakat funds and ration drives cannot replace structural redistribution. True unity demands economic dignity — a minimum threshold below which no Pakistani should fall.
Fourth, we must de-weaponise identity. Religion, ethnicity, and language are manipulated in the service of power. Until identity becomes a protected right — not a political tool — we will remain in conflict with ourselves.
Finally, we must build historical honesty. A society cannot unify when its histories are erased, its traumas redacted, and its voices excluded from national memory.
'Iss parcham ke saaye talay hum aik hain' should not be a slogan we shout once a year. It should be a question we answer daily — with policy, with empathy, with action.
Until every citizen — regardless of language, faith, gender, or geography — can point to the flag and see not just a symbol of identity, but a guarantee of dignity, we are not one nation. We are a collection of managed illusions under a single piece of cloth.
And no amount of ceremonial patriotism can heal a society that refuses to look into the mirror the flag demands we hold up.
Pakistan Zindabad — when every citizen can mean it the same way.