The Pakistan-owning families that remind us of the East India Company…

Nial Ferguson is one of the contemporary world’s key historians. He is also an influential political analyst. In his latest ‘piece’ he has predicted that the recent electricity failure in India—the greatest in history—was not the last. It will be repeated again—and then again—if India does not wake up to the realization that its outdated and sub-standard infrastructure needs more than overhauling—it needs replacement. And India needs to invest trillions of dollars on that project.
My readers should be worrying why I have chosen ‘India’ as my subject on this particular day which is the Day of our Independence-The Day Pakistan was born 65 years ago—
The reason is the first sentence that Nial Ferguson has written in the abovementioned piece.
“THE BRITISH – SLIGHTLY LESS THAN A THOUSAND OF THEM-USED TO GOVERN INDIA !
This sentence had the impact of the clap of thunder on my senses. India of this proposition was the undivided India which had been ruled for almost a thousand years by Muslims.
What happened then?
A British trading company sent its ships to the sub-continent. And what followed defies all logic. India became a British colony. Less than a thousand Britishers were enough to bring the whole sub-continent to their control!
What was the name of the limited company that took over the possession of India? The East India Company!
That is history now.
India won freedom in 1947. Pakistan was born on this day that year. The British East India company had passed into history long before.
But today’s Pakistan has been colonialized by a new breed of private limited companies. There are a number of them. Some are more powerful than the others. What is common in them all is the fact that these companies are owned by families. Though they are called political parties, the fact of their ownership makes us remember the East India Company.
Will the year 2013 bring us freedom from their yoke?
Will the next Day of Independence be celebrated with this joyful awareness that the era of these private limited companies too has passed into history?
(This Column was first published on 14-08-2012)