Abstract:
The state and society emerged simultaneously on 14th of August 1947.
Before that day, Pakistani society had no shared existence and was only an
“imagined community” in the literal sense of the phrase. The state of Pakistan
became an administrative arrangement put in place by the British rulers to ensure
their hold through a coercive dispensation. The change of regime did not
immediately and fundamentally alter the nature or structure of the state. The
psychosocial dimensions of values, attitudes and behaviour of the central authority
and its structures remained colonial. The state, its institutions and officials were
not “Pakistanized”; and the basic paradigm of relationship between state and the
people has remained that of the “rulers and the ruled”. The state has manifested
anti-people behaviour and shown proclivity to use coercion against the society.
Judiciary, civil and military bureaucracy and police along with the co-opted clergyhave
become deeply interwoven in maintaining their hold over the society. On the
other hand, the institutions of society have not been able to develop values,
attitudes, and behaviours that could create a caring, progressive, and pluralistic
national state. This conflict in incompatible values, hostile attitudes and behaviours
between state and society institutions and individuals is continuing. Consequently,
the state has become fragile and the society has become more fragmented. The
resolution of this conflict requires psychosocial transformation in individuals and
institutions of the state and society.
